The underground singer-songwriter Molly Nilsson has announced Extreme, her 10th album that will be out digitally on January 15 via Night School, with vinyl and CD copies out on January 28. “The letter X marks the spot, crosses over, literally with a cross…Ex- is the Latin prefix meaning “out”. Exterior, an exit. Extraordinary. Excellent. It’s exciting. Generation X. X-files. X is the unknown. X is Extreme.” 

Since her first album “These Things Take Time” (2008), Molly has addressed the “outsiders, outcasts, the X’s” with her distinctive lyrics and dreamscape sound. Having experienced Molly’s music live many times, I always thought of it like the empowering intersectional feminist terms that we could not have access to when we were still oppressed kids. Just like intersectional feminism, Molly’s music enables us today to enjoy an embodiment that is not disturbed by the patriarchy and all.  

With heavy guitar chords and terrific drum machines, the lead single Absolute Power opens up with an iconic line “It’s me versus the black hole at the center of the galaxy.” The minaret seen in the background of the music video by Berlin-based artists GrawBöckler and Molly is just one amazing element of it. In “Fearless Like A Child” she repetitively sings “I love my womb, come inside I feel so alive”. In “Sweet Smell Of Success” she pays tribute to Audre Lorde: “They’ll praise your efforts, they’ll call you slurs a rebel, a master, an amateur / Merely with your own existence, you already offer your resistance.”

Interchangeably angry and full of love,  Extreme is a record about power. About how to fight it, how to take it, and how to share it!